I find myself sitting at a Chinese restaurant with two Japanese people. One of them is Gensho Taigu, a Japanese Zen monk. I look at the menu, and I take a picture of the menu page. Taigu asks me if I know what I am going to order for the table, and I shamelessly say, “ChatGPT told me to order the crispy prawns.”
It didn’t hit me until after I said it that we’d just spent eight hours in a workshop, the Taigu Dojo, being taught about mental and physical discipline, discussing the ways in which the world we live in has made us less human.
Osho then very calmly asks me: Has ChatGPT ever eaten Chinese food?
I stay silent. He has a point. But he challenges me in such a kind and compassionate way that it just feels like a nudge to reflect. I do. I reflect.
Then, because I have no mental filter, I calmly say: “OK… I’d like to ask you something. I am doing it for the sake of discussion, not trying to be disrespectful. You give advice to people on how to live their lives, but you haven’t lived every life.”
And I can’t fully remember what he said, because my mind was busy telling me how stupid I was for challenging the man who so kindly has invited me to come to Japan. I recall him mentioning something about having the knowledge of the body and the study of the mind, but I would find the answer to my question later in Japan.
Gensho Taigu and I met last year while I was producing YouTube videos. He was the protagonist of those videos.
I remember when I was invited to dinner to meet him and his team, I spent several hours online trying to figure out how to interact with Japanese people. However, none of my little knowledge was put to the test, as his team and he were prepared to interact with Westerners.
During dinner, I sat next to Jiko-san, one of his key team members, and she and I had a lovely conversation. I felt so much genuine love and admiration for her. All of Taigu’s team were such lovely people.
After the production day, I didn’t want them to leave. The next week at the office, I checked their website and daydreamed about possibly staying at their temple in Nagoya one day. I just dreamt, knowing deep down that with my current salary and living in London, I would never be able to afford travelling to Japan.
Fast forward six months, and I am being called to have dinner with Taigu Osho and one of the Butsushinkai members in London. I try to keep it together for ten minutes after sitting at the table and then ask, “Could you please, please tell me why I am here? I am so nervous and so confused.”
He laughs and acknowledges that it was normal, and he proceeds to invite me to visit him and his team at the temple. I might like Japan and consider staying there long-term.
Eight months later, I am writing this while flying between Helsinki and Tokyo. But for eight months, I didn’t know what to tell people I was doing in Japan.
I only know that I’ve been praying to be taught humility and to find a business mentor, as I have an entrepreneurial vein that I can’t hide. I might never run my own company with multiple workers as he does, but if that moment ever comes, I’d like to learn from him and the Japanese, who play the long-term business game very well, rather than the quick and crash-and-burn approach to building businesses in the West.
Sometimes I wish I could ask ChatGPT to tell me about the future, but then I remember: Has ChatGPT ever lived as me in the future?
Photo taken by Chitetsu-san at Okinawa (Nov 2025)